It seems that
Mommy B and I are real gluttons for punishment. Even though neither of us have
ADD, we can’t seem to “sit still” in life – we’re always changing things around
and shaking things up. Life would just be too boring otherwise, right? Allow me
to bring youse up to speed on everything we’ve piled on our plates recently.
After all, with my metabolism I never did like having an empty plate.
Mommy B is still
grinding it out with her schoolwork. She’s only a few months away from
obtaining her Master’s degree in nursing, which I’m so proud of her for working
towards. It’s not easy being a mother of two small children, taking Master’s
courses, oh, and she’s got this little thing on the side called a full time
job. She’s almost there, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m
optimistic that it’ll all be worth it in the end.
I’ve taken on
some new responsibilities at my job as well. My direct manager left the company
just over a month ago so now I report directly to her former supervisor. My “new”
manager has tasked me with some rather important duties that could get me some
serious street cred around the company. I’ve also volunteered to facilitate a
Project Management Professional (PMP) study group for folks at the company who
are looking to get certified. I’ve been looking for a chance to share my
knowledge and experience since obtaining my PMP certification back in May 2013,
and this opportunity recently presented itself. Not only will it help me stay
up-to-date with my knowledge on the subject, but will also count as continuing
education credits to maintain my certification. Not to mention it’ll look good
for the company (and me) if a whole group of people get certified thanks to my
help. I’m all about giving back…
We also decided
a couple weeks ago that we want to sell our house and move to another part of
Charleston. We still like the area where we are now, but the public school
situation is pretty dire at the moment and likely isn’t going to drastically
improve for some time. They’re working on it, but it won’t be up to par by the
time the A-Team comes romping through. Plus, we’d like a little more square
footage (a.k.a a play/media room) for the years to come. So, we contacted an
agent, got the house cleaned up and put the old girl on the market Thursday of last
week. We had a showing on Friday and another on Saturday morning, and we had
offers in our email by Saturday night. We were basically batting .1000 – two showings,
two offers. Holy crap. We’ve been
looking at potential properties all along, but nothing was really grabbing us like our current home did when we first walked
in. That was, until last night. After looking at probably 15 houses or so (and
countless more online), we’ve narrowed it down to two houses in the Mount
Pleasant area of Charleston.
We thought it
would be best to strike while the iron was hot and put an offer in on a house
we saw for the first time yesterday. Real estate is moving fast in this town as
we saw first-hand with our own house! After viewing the last few houses, we
went back to the agent’s office and stayed until about 9pm last night ratifying
the contract on our own house and putting an offer together on the house we
want. We’re scheduled to go back to our top two houses this afternoon for one
more walk-through, and I’m bringing my parents so they can give us their
thoughts. I’ve feigned modesty about my father’s construction background in
previous posts, but I’d really like the big man to “inspect” both houses and
give us the details. He’ll give us the cold hard truth about each property – if
he feels the layout would work for us, if there are any structural issues, if
certain things will need to be replaced soon and anything else his decades of
experience might expose to us star-struck youngins. So we’ll see how that goes.
I knew going in that the home-selling/buying/moving experience is one of the
most stressful that a couple will ever go through, and the timing isn’t helping
matters much.
In other news,
our home computer died last week. The good news is that it isn’t
software-related and the hard drive is still intact, but the power cord and DC
jack are no longer changing the battery. And as we all know in this modern age
of technology that no battery means no computer. The nerds at the repair shop
said it would take 3-5 business days to order and ship a new DC jack, then just
an hour or so to install it. The whole deal would only run us about $150 and
change, but the headache of having to borrow my parent’s computer while Mommy B
tries to complete her schoolwork has added another stressor to the equation
that we’re trying our best to deal with. Not to mention the fact that the
number of emails we’ve been trying to send back and forth to get the housing
situation squared away has complicated matters even further.
Before things
really started heating up with the house sale/search, Mommy B and I had booked
a weekend trip to Maggie Valley, North Carolina so I could take her snow skiing
for the first time ever. I learned how to ski when I was in 4th-5th
grade, and did it all through high school. Granted, most of my slope time was
on the steep crags of Perfect North Slopes just across the Ohio border in
Indiana. We’re talking 300-foot verticals here, nothing to be messed with. Well,
in a couple weeks I’m taking her to the Appalachian Mountains to get her on
some real ski slopes. We’ve booked a
cozy little cabin at the base of the mountain (with a hot tub) and are looking
forward to spending a couple days on the slopes – all by ourselves. Grandma C
has been kind enough to book a plane ticket to Charleston to come take care of
the kiddos while we’re shredding the fresh powder. I’m hoping that we can still
make the trip in the midst of all this housing drama, so that could be pending.
Our kids? Oh
yeah, them…
Alli is still
every bit of a nut she’s always been. I know we’ve said it numerous times
before, but it’s really like having a small person around the house. She’s
extremely articulate and will tell you exactly what she’s thinking and what she
needs or wants. I never would have thought that I would have had some of the
conversations I’ve had with her and she’s not even three and a half yet. I can
only imagine what the next couple years will bring. She has started coming into
our bedroom on the weekends and climbing into our bed with us for snuggle time.
Well, Mommy B and I wish it was
snuggle time because in actuality it has become Alli blabbing to us about
anything and everything that’s on her mind. From what she learned in school
that week to what she’s going to eat for breakfast that morning to what she
wants to watch on TV… the girl is an endless stream of consciousness in the
mornings. She’ll still have a meltdown for a ridiculous reason (as most
three-year olds do), but she’s to the point now where we can usually talk her off the ledge easily
because she understands so much of what we say to her. I swear, being a parent
should require a Master’s degree in Psychology. Unfortunately most of the
people having kids these days barely have a degree in anything.
Aiden is slowly
but surely expanding his vocabulary. More and more words are making their way
out of his mouth, even though he certainly knows what he wants to say. He’ll point and pull and drag you to whatever it is
he needs or wants. He’s still a Stage 5 clinger, and he’s definitely into his
Terrible Two’s early – just like his big sister was. Don’t give him something
he wants, and it’s bad head and big crocodile tears… instant crisis. His latest
trick is to nod or shake his head when you ask him a yes or no question. It’s
pretty encouraging to see his development take form in something like that –
where he not only understands what you’re asking him, but also knows the proper
non-verbal response to get the desired result. I know their school has taught
them baby sign language since they were infants, but seeing him grasp this more
adult-like non-verbal communication is pretty impressive for a 21-month old.
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